Huge Dead Cells Update Highlighted in New Patch Notes | Game Rant

The newest update has gone live on PC for Dead Cells, the popular roguelike Metroidvania developed and published by Motion Twin. The Wack-a-Mole update for Dead Cells gives players new weapons, an altered difficulty curve, quality of life improvements, and much more.

2017's Dead Cells recently hit a massive sales milestone, as the roguelike has now sold over 5 million copies. For any game that is impressive, but that is especially eye-popping for an indie-developed title. Perhaps part of the reason for the success is ongoing support by way of updates and content, and the Wack-a-Mole update is the latest example.

RELATED: Dead Cells Reveals Fatal Falls DLC Gameplay

The highlight of the update is three heavy weapons: the Oven Axe, Toothpick, and Tombstone. There are also three new damage-focused mutations. That list includes the Execution, Barbed Tips, and Point Blank. The altered difficulty curve is also a key feature of the update, as is plenty of balancing adjustments, UI updates, bug fixes, and balancing work for the Fatal Falls DLC for Dead Cells.

Last December, the developer added a Holiday-themed update to Dead Cells as well, filled with new features, holiday-inspired outfits. and more. Developer Motion Twin is wise to keep Dead Cells alive with ongoing free updates and paid DLC. As far as the Wack-a-Mole update, it seems quite substantial. Much of the content is simply nice to have, while other changes and additions are quality of life improvements and things that fans have been asking for.

Important features

• New weapon: the Oven Axe.They say the last hit can be chained, but no one lived long enough to confirm...
• New weapon: the Toothpick.A big wooden club. Hold to charge and break the club on the head of your unfortunate enemies.
• New weapon: the Tombstone.Stay on the ground and doom nearby enemies if you manage to kill something with the last hit.An ethereal tombstone fall on the heads of doomed enemies. Each kill starts a new wave of doom (up to 3 consecutive waves).
• Community suggestion New mutation: No Mercy. (Colorless). Instantly kill enemies going under 15% health (non-scaling). Effect halved for bosses.
• Community suggestion New mutation: Point Blank. Close-ranged range attacks inflict X% bonus damages.
• Community suggestion New mutation: Barbed Tips. Inflict x damage per seconds to enemies per arrows stuck in them.
• New difficulty curve: We're experimenting with a new way of increasing the difficulty from one BC to the next.BC0: Health fountains in every transition.BC1: Health fountain every other transition, with one minor flask when the fountain is missing.BC2: No more health fountain, one minor flask in every transition.BC3: One minor flask after the first boss and before the second.BC4: No more health in any transition, enemies teleport to your position.BC5: No more health, enemies teleport, malaise added.

  Looking to have your opinion on that new formula, so don't hesitate to give us feedback!

• Community suggestion A new PNJ 5bc exclusive has appeared, the Collector's intern! He will be able to unlock blueprints while the big guy is away.
• Community suggestion Added an Omnivorous diet which randomize the appearance of your food.

Balancing

• Legendary items now scale based on the sum of your two highest statistics. Legendary no longer increase the item level. This is very subject to change and hence has no visual indication implemented yet.
• Community suggestion Tesla Coil blueprint drop rate increased.
• Items obtained by the Collector (when completing a blueprint) are now Colorless.
• Community suggestion Malaise no longer increases the movement speed of enemies.
• Community suggestion Sudden Death prevention invulnerability duration increases from 0.5 to 0.6 seconds.
• All weapons now have a bit of air control if an ennemy is in the strike zone.
• Capped the fatal fall's damages to 15% of your max life.
• Fatal Falls Community suggestion Added bonus scrolls in Fractured Shrines (in BC3+) and Undying Shores (in BC4+) to make them on par with other levels.
• Fatal Falls Community suggestion Turned one double-scroll into a triple-scroll in Fractured Shrines.
• Fatal Falls Community suggestion Improved Soul Shot's (the off-hand of Ferryman's Lantern) aim to target multiple enemies if possible.
• Community suggestion You can now find one outfit and one other item as blueprints in a level.
• Mobs can no longer spawn or turn into elites do to Malaise in the first few seconds after an Elite mob aggroes you.
• Fixed Shovel, Flashing Fans and War Spear not working with Porcupack.
• Prevented elite Demolishers to spawn with the cage elite skill. Update 23.3

Level design

• Fatal Falls Community suggestion Fixed missing scrolls in Fractured Shrines and Undying Shores.
• Fatal Falls Made fatal fall's zones in Fractured Shrines more tolerant to prevent unfair damages.

Graphics & UI

• The description and affix list of items now scroll together in the Pause menu for a better readability in all situations. Still not an excuse for really long descriptions of items, but it's better than nothing.
• Fatal Falls Community suggestion Reordered Fatal Fall's achievements in the Statistics panel to a more logical order.
• Increased the size of the flask zone to account for all items.
• Community suggestion Cocoon now display "Parry" when a succesful parry occur.
• Improved Cold Blooded Guardian animations and visual effects for a better readability.
• Community suggestion Fixed Myopic Crows color in the Statistics panel.
• Malaise rules modification are now denoted by icons when the malaise increase. You can find the meaning of each icon in the Infos tab of your pause menu.
• Fatal Falls Improved Serenade's visual effects for a better readability.
• Improved readability of War Javelin and Snake Fangs teleport visual effects, especially in Fractured Shrines.
• Community suggestion Added a small visualisation of the item in your backpack in the pause menu.
• Added a small mention of the possibility to use Custom Mode to lock back items in the Collector UI to encourage players to unlock everything, even items they might end up not liking. Use the Custom Mode! It's part of the game! You're not cheating!
• Backpack mutations (Porcupack, Acrobatipack and Armadillopack) now have their icon showcasing the internal cooldown.
• Removed the confusing "Hold RB to empty your backpack" prompt in the switch item GUI.
• Fixed Acceptance text not mentionning food cursing you.
• Community suggestion Fixed Acrobatipack not mentioning that melee weapons don't trigger the effect.
• Fixed some typos.
• Allow off-screen attack indications even if on-screen indications are disabled. Both can still be disabled separately in the menu. Update 23.3
• Community suggestion Uniformized exit names after all boss battles. Update 23.4
• Community suggestion Clarified Crow's Wings description. Update 23.4
• Community suggestion Edited Rampart description to mention that only melee parry trigger the invulnerability. Update 23.4

Quality of life

• Community suggestion Cursed Gems now require a long press to be picked up. No more accidental cursing.
• Community suggestion Added the option "Hold to chain attacks" in the Gameplay tab of the options. Serious note here: please suggest more accessibility options. We will do our best to include them.
• Hunter's Grenade now respawn on a platform after being thrown into the void.
• Moved the "Random Outfit" option from the classic options to the Custom Mode, with a new option to randomize your skin on every main level (not in the transitions) and an interface to chose which skins you want to have randomly selected.
• Community suggestion Included several player-suggested rewording for mutations. English only for now. Update 23.2
• Community suggestion All items now respawn when falling into the void. Update 23.3
• Community suggestion Differentiated the two Purulent Zombie's name:- The one with the flies is now the Swarm Zombie- The one who throws eggs is now the Festering Zombie Update 23.4
• Community suggestion Blueprints are now automatically registered when entering a transition level. You no longer need to interact with the Collector to register them. Update 23.4

Music & Sfx

• Community suggestion The Derelict Distillery soundtrack has been remastered and reexported to be more in-line with the rest of the game. Update 23.5

Bug fixes

• Fixed a crash when using the "Hitchcock" or "Darkness" game modifiers in Custom Mode.
• Fixed a crash that occured with some mods due to Malaise.
• Fixed a crash occuring with hero climbing when modifying SFXs.
• Fixed the force malaise option from the Custom Mode always re-activating even after deactivating it manually.
• Fixed a bug making you float after entering a challenge portal with the Assault power.
• Reduced the lag occuring when breaking a ground or wall.
• Fixed malaise spawning enemies in transition levels.
• Fixed Cocoon being able to rally.
• Fixed being able to load the Katana's strike when holding a shield.
• Fixed some seed errors (notably in Cavern).
• Fixed bosses having a small life bar after reloading the level.
• Fixed a crash on the Tentacle Whip.
• Fix Phaser sometimes teleporting the player out of a boss arena.
• Fixed Porcupack only working on the first enemy hit.
• Fixed various crashes.
• Fatal Falls Fixed a crash that occured when dying with a Serenade equipped and replacing a Barrel Launcher.
• Fatal Falls Fixed a crash related to Myopic Crows.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Giant Whistle freezing the Scarecrow.
• Fatal Falls Fixed some crashes related to the Scarecrow.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Serenade's icon disappearing when entering or exiting a sub-level.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Serenade sometimes eating your main weapon. God that one was a doozy!
• Fatal Falls Fixed Serenade resetting the other power's cooldown. A very finite amount of power.
• Fatal Falls Improved performances in the corners. Don't expect anything revolutionnary, but we're working on it.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Mac OSX version. Technically it was fixed earlier, but better to put it in a patchnote, right?
• Fatal Falls Fixed a soft lock occuring in Undying Shores when using the War Javelin to reach the far right of the map.
• Fatal Falls Prevented some soft-locks in Undying Shores when paths are too close to one another.
• Fatal Falls Fixed some crashes occuring with Serenade.
• Fatal Falls Fixed non-reanimated corpse in Undying Shores appearing on the minimap.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Pool Party achievement not triggering.
• Fatal Falls Fixed A cut above achievement triggering on hits instead of kills.
• Fatal Falls Fixed unstable platforms collapsing during cinematics. Scrolls pickup, etc.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Hunter's Grenade locking doors when used on Stone Warden. Yes, it means that you can turn a Warden elite. You asked for this.
• Fatal Falls Prevent altars from spawning on unstable platforms.
• Fatal Falls Forced dead cultist to appear if you didn't unlock the Cultist Outfit.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Cocoon's cooldown not resetting when parrying a grenade.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Cursed Sword, Perfect Halberd (and other weapons interacting with hero's damages) not working when replaced by Serenade.
• Fatal Falls Fixed the achievement "Me, Jealous?" not trigerring.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Soul Shot (the off-hand of Ferryman's Lantern) not triggering Accrobatipack.
• Fatal Falls Reverted unwanted changes in bestiaries from non-DLC levels to state before the DLC.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Myopic Crows dying when entering fatal-fall zones. Yes, this means more crows. Gnehehe
• Fatal Falls Fixed the first Serenade you encounter not being colorless.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Snake Fangs teleporting to hidden mobs.
• Fatal Falls Prevent a soft-lock when going to the end of the room at the end of Scoring Mode. Why would you do that?!
• Fatal Falls Fixed Soul Shot (the off-hand of Ferryman's Lantern) not interacting with the perk Kill Rythm.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Cocoon not damaging thrown Jerkshroom's.
• Fatal Falls Removed a confusing "point at self" animation from a lore-room in Undying Shores.
• Fatal Falls Fixed Scarecrow's Sickles disappearing after reloading a level, locking the power until the end of the level.
• The Bad Seed Fixed crash related to Jerkshrooms.
• The Bad Seed Fixed Ticks soft-locking because of the Hunter's Grenade and the Cocoon.
• The Bad Seed Fixed a crash on attacking Mama Tick during the cinematic. Who does that? And how?
• The Bad Seed Mushroom Boi now teleport next to you when fatal-falling instead of disappearing.
• The Bad Seed Fixed a crash occuring on Mushroom Boi. Update 23.2
• Fatal Falls Fixed a crash related to Ferryman's Lantern and Backpack mutations. Update 23.2
• Fatal Falls Fixed several Scarecrow crashes. Update 23.2
• Fixed soft-lock occuring when glitching on top of un-deployed Vines. Update 23.2
• Fixed a crash with Hayabusa's Gauntlet. Update 23.2
• Fixed a soft-lock occuring when teleporting out of the boss room with Phaser on Conjonctivius. Update 23.2
• Fixed a crash on Tentacle Whip. Update 23.2
• Fixed a crash occuring when opening the "additionnal content* panel in the main menu. Update 23.2
• Fixed several rare crashes. Update 23.2
• Fixed items descriptions being unaligned by 3 pixels. Yes. Update 23.3
• Fatal Falls Fixed scrolls sometimes appearing out of reach in the Undying Shores. Update 23.3
• Fixed Ygdar Orus Li Ox perk consuming your cells when you die by falling into the void. Update 23.4
• Fixed being able to eat food at full health when Malaise is active. Update 23.4
• Fixed a typo in Alienation mutation english description. Update 23.4
• Fatal Falls Fixed a lore room interactible missing a label. The "null" water tank. Update 23.4
• Removed mention of malaise protection in Tonic's description. Update 23.4
• Fixed Custom Mode maximum flasks setting not working as intended. Update 23.4
• Fatal Falls Removed healing in transition between Fractured Shrines and Undying Shores in relevant difficulties. To keep it in line with other 4th to 5th level transitions. Update 23.4
• The Bad Seed Prevented a certain sacrifice to consume unrelated items. Update 23.4
• Fixed Distillery being accessible on a fresh save for players having already reached the Throne room on another save. Update 23.4
• Fatal Falls Added a lantern in the Mausoleum when playing with the darkness modifier. Update 23.4
• Fixed a crash occuring when picking up a tier scroll with the homunculus while climbing. Update 23.4
• Fixed diminishing returns no longer resetting after a while. Update 23.4
• Fixed being unable to stomp across one-ways platforms when standing in front of a ladder. Update 23.4
• Fixed Tentacle Whip kick chaining indefinitly. Update 23.4
• Fatal Falls Fixed Iron Staff parry not stunning when parrying after the hit.Update 23.4
• Fixed Repeater Crossbow off-hand using main-hand's affixes. Update 23.4
• Fixed Repeater Crossbow off hand affixes pool. Update 23.4

Dead Cells is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

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Source: Steam